Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/AnomieBOT 55

The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA. The result of the discussion was Approved.

Operator: Anomie⚔

Time filed: 16:04, Monday September 12, 2011 (UTC)

Automatic or Manual: Automatic, unsupervised

Programming language(s): Perl

Source code available: User:AnomieBOT/source/tasks/TagDater.pm

Function overview: When dating maintenance tags, if no undated tags are found in an article then check templates transcluded in the article.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): none

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: Depends on how often people leave maintenance tags undated in templates, and whether other bots beat AnomieBOT to it.

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Yes

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Yes

Function details: As approved in AnomieBOT 49, the bot dates maintenance tags in articles listed in Category:Wikipedia maintenance categories sorted by month. I've noticed that many of the cases where the bot cannot find a maintenance tag to date are due to someone adding a maintenance tag to a navbox or other template transcluded in the page. It would make sense for the bot to check that, instead of requiring a human to do it.

Discussion

Is the bot going to be fixing the problem of not using "<noinclude>" tags? Or just working around it. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 17:22, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Which problem is that? All this bot will do is change a human-inserted {{fact}} to {{fact|date=September 2011}} and the like. Anomie⚔ 18:05, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The problem of random pages showing up in maintenance categories when really it should be the template page itself...? Or am I getting confused? - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 18:36, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Take for example iCab, it's in Category:Articles with unsourced statements because someone stuck a {{fact}} in Template:Gopher clients. The template itself actually isn't in the category, because these dated templates mostly don't categorize non-articles. If someone were to <noinclude>...</noinclude> the {{fact}}, then probably no one would ever see it. Anomie⚔ 18:42, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So what does the bot do with such a tag included in some transcluded template? Does it notify someone, or do you just want to date it like all a regular dated maintenance template? Is it actually a valid use to have it transcluded, because I would think not? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 18:40, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just date it, which is what I usually do (or see has already been done) when I have time to go through the list and fix things manually. Anomie⚔ 18:42, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Seems almost speedy-able, but since this would deal with templates, and that they often have to be handled with whitegloves, let's have a trial. Approved for trial (100). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete.. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:36, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I'll have the edit summaries for this task include the text "[BRFA55]" to make them easier to find. Anomie⚔ 04:01, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, undated maintenance tags carelessly applied litter wikipedia. Best would be developer code to have all maintenance tags dated when added to article space. --68.105.141.221 (talk) 05:05, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Edits so far: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. Numbers 2, 5, and 6 were errors (those magic words should be substed in articles but not in templates), fixed the bug already. Anomie⚔ 11:51, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One more: [9]. Anomie⚔ 00:34, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Another one: [10]. Anomie⚔ 14:31, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A bug this time: [11]. Fixed. Anomie⚔ 02:53, 19 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One more: [12]. Anomie⚔ 12:33, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Two more today: [13][14]. The second prompted the newly-created template to be fixed to properly pass along the |date=. Anomie⚔ 01:01, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Another broken template that needed fixing: [15]. Anomie⚔ 12:50, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know that the placement of the {{merge to}} on this template is a good idea, but the bot's edit is exactly correct: [16]. Anomie⚔ 13:04, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One more: [17]. Only 83 to go... Anomie⚔ 13:22, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Two more: [18][19]. Anomie⚔ 03:48, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Alright well it's painfully obvious that this is a slow task, and the bug rate is relatively high. How about you have the bot notify you (at say User:AnomieBot/Templates with potential for a bot edit or something) and then you could review the page and see if the edit should be done/would break stuff? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 05:47, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the bugs with numbers 2, 5, 6, and 11 are fixed already, so that sort of thing won't happen again. 14 and 15 are GIGO, but I think I might be able to detect those as well (if removing templates needing dating, comments, <noinclude>, and maybe categories would give a blank page, it's probably a broken shell for the template needing dating). Anomie⚔ 11:21, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Still, while 2/5/6/11 are fixed, it's very hard to tell what else could be buggy, nor are GIGO situations uncommon (2 in 19 edits is rather high). At this point I'd be much more comfortable with a bot that lists templates in need of attention, than one that automatically makes the fix, unreviewed. The workload is small enough that it should not be a significant burden. If you're conformatable with those terms, I can approve that task (building a list of templates in need of attention). If you'd rather have the bot make edits to template directly, then we can wait for more edits, but I suspect it'll be some time before there's enough edits to justify approval (plus, if there are other bugs or GIGO, then I'll just make it that much harder to get approval). I recommended the first, but if you want to trial things longer, we can do that to. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 05:20, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One more: [20] Anomie⚔ 16:38, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Two more: [21][22]. Anomie⚔ 17:46, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Three more: [23][24][25] Anomie⚔ 01:34, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Three more: [26][27][28]. Anomie⚔ 21:47, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Seven more: [29][30][31][32][33][34][35]. Note that 395 BC and 396 BC are transcluded onto 390s BC and 404 BC is transcluded onto 409–400 BC, which is why the bot did them as "templates". Anomie⚔ 17:42, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've always done most of the stuff outside mainspace manually. There's a lot of gotchas. Rich Farmbrough, 21:31, 17 November 2011 (UTC).

Five more: [36][37][38][39][40]. Anomie⚔ 03:15, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Seven more: [41][42][43][44][45][46][47]. Note the first was at the time transcluded onto Phantom, which is why the bot did it as a "template". Anomie⚔ 22:00, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One more: [48]. Note it's transcluded into List of Latin phrases (full). Anomie⚔ 13:47, 26 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One more: [49]. Anomie⚔ 15:11, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

One more: [50]. Anomie⚔ 14:23, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This has been open since September last year, do we really need to continue the trial this long? Considering the very low edit rate, there is no risk of the bot editing and damaging hundreds of templates. Likewise, if the bot does make any errors, Anomie is a trusted and competent bot op, who can fix them without needing to be babysat by a BRFA. --Chris 10:18, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Concur. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 10:18, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Does it need to be closed then? Just hanging around won't do anything. Rcsprinter (yak) 17:13, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

With two BAG members concurring (three, including me), I daresay we can close this discussion.  Approved. – Carry on. — madman 22:31, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA.